relationship between memory and social judgement: A dynamical perspective

This study explored the relationship between memory and social judgment. Subjects evaluated someone who was described in both desirable and undesirable terms in a taped conversation. They used a computer mouse to express their judgments on a moment-to-moment basis for 90 sec. under one of three instructional sets: memory-based (mouse judgment upon completion of the conversation, based on their recall of information), on-line (mouse judgment while listening to the conversation), and off-line (mouse judgment upon completion of the conversation, based on their judgments formed while listening to the conversation). Half the subjects believed their judgments were relevant to the person's fate (high importance), half believed their judgments were not relevant to his fate (low importance). Subjects in the off-line/important condition demonstrated sustained oscillation in their mouse judgments throughout the judgment period in accord with dynamic integration. In all other conditions, subjects converged on a stable judgment relatively quickly, in accord with static integration.